Writer & speaker :: Life & style

Five months
today, I’ll be holidaying in a seaside cottage with my partner and his
family. I keep picturing the scene, envisioning
myself taking a bracing walk along the beach before curling up with a hot mug
of tea, a good book and some tartan trousers (fantasies about my future
*always* include details about what I’m wearing). I’ve also been checking out my availability
in February 2016 as a friend is organising a girls’ weekend away. Most dates are fine but I want to avoid
clashing with a few work commitments already pencilled in.

I’m very
excited about these future plans but have to keep reminding myself that they
are some distance away. Imagining good times
ahead is healthy and normal, but what if they distract us from the here and
now? I don’t want to be so caught up in
daydreaming about winter escapades (and planning my capsule wardrobe to take
with me) that I overlook the treasures that summer still has to offer.

The future
can pull so strongly on our minds and our hearts. Throughout childhood we dream and scheme
about ‘when we grow up’ and somehow that hankering for all our tomorrows never
really leaves us as adults. We picture some
time ahead of now and yearn for what it promises: holiday, new job, Christmas,
baby gets older, kids grow up, teenagers leave home, retirement…then I’ll be
happy / get more sleep / go travelling / relax (delete as appropriate). Or worse we postpone living our lives to the
full whilst we await some event that we hope will happen but have no guarantees
about: when I lose two stone / get married / make enough money / am less busy.

The future
tugs and pulls and distracts us with all its tantalizing allure. How much easier it is to look ahead to an
imaginary time that we can mould to our exact desires rather than embrace where
we actually are in our lives right now.
My mythical future home looks exactly like the place I’m living in now
only the boxes in the hallway have been replaced with beautiful bookshelves,
the worktop doesn’t need linseed oiling and the unknown source of all the dust
in the bathroom has mysteriously vanished.
Oh, and I never, ever, ever have to sit at my desk completing a tax
return.

As this
example illustrates, our future-focus is not always a useful psychological tool
for getting through tough times and traumas.
Sometimes we use it to avoid the kinds of problems that come with
frankly pretty privileged existence. It
simply gives us some time-out from being responsible for our lives. In our dream worlds, we don’t have to
organise solutions, actually do any work or other unappealing things like save
money or start pensions; in fantasy future land, everything we want just
magically happens. Small wonder it’s an
attractive place to mentally decamp to whenever we want to be absolved of
adulthood.

Yet one of
the many dangers of spending too much time in this comfortable place in our
heads is that it can overshadow the here and now, which is a great place to dwell
if we really look at it. We lose sight
of all the goodness around us.
Feverishly craving the next stage in your child’s development can
obscure the joys of whatever it is they are doing today. Fixating on a particular decorating project
can blind us to all the stuff we love about the home we live in. Too much daydreaming about future adventures
almost stopped me appreciating the treasure to be found in a quiet Saturday
afternoon at home, tidying out the cutlery drawer.

Living
for the weekend makes us overlook everything we have to be grateful for from
Monday to Friday.

Living
for the holidays makes us wish away months and years of our lives.

Let’s not
forget everything we have to be grateful for in the here and now. Whenever it is that you’re reading this, stop
for a few minutes and think about three good things in your life right
now. And I mean right now, in this
moment. Perhaps it’s sunny. Perhaps it’s raining – but you’re inside in
the dry. Perhaps you’re on holiday. Perhaps you’re at work – but you’ve got a
brew and a few minutes to read this blog post.
Perhaps you like your nail varnish.
Perhaps your kids are playing in the garden. Perhaps you’re eating a good lunch.

If you can’t
think of anything, go to the nearest tap and turn it on. You have access to running water! That is something to be very glad about.

Think of
three things that you are grateful for right now. Then next time you are drifting off into
fantasy future land, come back to the present and do it again.

And again.

And again.

Rather than
living for the future, let’s live for our lives today. I’ve heard that Thursday 30th July
is really rather a great day to be alive J

Three
things that I’m grateful for right now:The
sun has just come out again!The
peace and quiet of where I liveThe
Orla Kiely notebook on the desk beside my laptop – a beautiful present from a
friend.